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Rhinoplasty Cost

How to Determine Your Rhinoplasty Cost

If you’re looking into a nose job, you might finally be wondering: how much does a rhinoplasty cost? The answer can be quite flexible—to a frustrating degree. But that’s because there are a significant number of variables in any plastic surgery procedure, rhinoplasty included.

Generally, the cost of rhinoplasty ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 although that number does not take into account all expenses. Anesthesia, hospital visits, and follow up care can add to the total cost. Likewise, that figure includes an incredibly wide range of possible dollar amounts.

We can try to narrow down the possibilities by focusing in on some of the major variables when it comes to the cost of rhinoplasty procedures around the country. This won’t serve as any kind of valid estimate (only your surgeon can provide that). But it might help your planning to know whether you might be on the high or the low side of possible price ranges.

What Do You Want Your Rhinoplasty to Accomplish?

There’s probably no such thing as a “simple” rhinoplasty procedure. Each and every surgery has its own unique challenges. However, some techniques are more complex than others, requiring more finesse, longer recovery, and larger doses of anesthesia.

As a rule of thumb, general anesthesia is going to be significantly more costly to the patient than local anesthetic. That, in and of itself, is not a good reason to choose one over the other (that decision will usually be made under the direction of your surgeon).

However, it’s worth noting that simpler incision techniques—a closed rhinoplasty compared to an open rhinoplasty, for example—often increase the opportunities for patients to use local anesthetic.

Ultimately, however, you want to get results. So it’s usually better to do things right the first time. That said, there are some results-based factors that can increase the cost of your rhinoplasty:

Whether you want functional changes or aesthetic changes (or both)

How drastic you want those changes to be

Whether you want an open or closed rhinoplasty

How long the incision will need to be

Whether you want cartilage changed in addition to tissue

Any other changes you want to make to the face (in addition to the nose)

The Importance of Anesthesia

As mentioned above, one of the reasons these functional decisions matter is because it will influence the type of anesthesia surgeons decide to use. In general, when more complex or intensive work is required, general anesthesia is used. What’s the difference between the two?

Local anesthesia means that only a small area is affected—minimizing pain and discomfort in that area. In this case, it means that the nose is treated to minimize discomfort (though, in some cases, a general sedative is given to the patient in order to promote relaxation).

General anesthesia is used to render the patient essentially unconscious in order to minimize pain and discomfort. This is usually reserved for more intensive surgery and require much more careful planning in order to achieve the desired effect.

Essentially, general anesthesia is going to be more expensive—but sometimes that’s what is required to generate the final desired results.

Local Competition

To some degree, there are going to be a few variables you can’t really control. One of those variables is your geographical location. Because plastic surgery is usually paid for out of pocket (more on that later) or through financing, the local economy plays an important factor in determining pricing. There are a couple of reasons:

Local Competition: When surgeons have a lot of local competition, it can sometimes (but not always) drive prices down to a certain extent.

Local Cost of Living: In areas where the cost of living is higher, the price of surgery is likely to be higher. Think about it this way: the rent of the surgical clinic is going to be wrapped into the price of the procedure, so a higher rent means a higher out of pocket cost.

Training: Now, this isn’t always the case, but to a certain extent, you get what you pay for in terms of plastic surgery. A surgeon with a well regarded reputation is going to be able to charge more than someone who is just out of med school. That doesn’t mean that paying more is any kind of guarantee, but it’s definitely something to consider.

Ways to Cut Down on Rhinoplasty Costs

There are a couple of ways that you might be able to cut down on your rhinoplasty costs. One is to consider a non surgical rhinoplasty. The cost of a Non Surgical Nose Job is significantly less than a surgical procedure (in most cases, a Non Surgical Nose Job will run between $1000-$1500). The downside is that a Non Surgical Nose Job tends to be temporary and results can be somewhat subtle.

Still, patients do get to experience those results immediately and don’t have to go through any downtime. Whether that’s the preferred path is really up to the patient in question.

Using Medical Insurance

One other way to cut your out-of-pocket expenses for rhinoplasty is to use medical insurance to cover some of the costs. This is not applicable for every rhinoplasty procedure—especially those that are completely aesthetic in nature. However, if you’re repairing damage caused by a broken nose or fixing a functional element of the nose, your medical insurance may help you pay for the procedure.

That said, you’ll want to check with your insurance company to see what is and what is not covered by your plan. Sometimes it won’t always be clear, so you’ll have to anticipate as best you can.

Anticipating the Cost of Rhinoplasty

When you can closely anticipate the cost of rhinoplasty, you can more accurately plan for your procedure. Whether we like it or not, cost (and payment) is a huge factor in nose job procedures. Patients have to determine the best timing for a procedure, and sometimes cost plays a role in those discussions.

The best place to find out more about the cost of rhinoplasty is from your surgeon. Once your surgeon has a better idea of what it will take to get you the results you’re after, you’ll have a more accurate picture of what your rhinoplasty cost might be.